The Reputational Benefits of Intellectual Humility

Review of Philosophy and Psychology 15 (2):483-498 (2024)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Much work on intellectual humility has focused on its epistemic benefits. We suggest that displaying (or failing to display) intellectual humility also has effects on how others perceive us and that, as a result, intellectual humility can serve reputation management purposes, in at least four ways: (i) Intellectual humility can be used to signal we are a good source of information; (ii) Intellectual humility can be used to signal we are competent through countersignaling; (iii) Intellectual humility can be used to make sure others do not believe we are overclaiming superiority; (iv) lack of intellectual humility (or intellectual arrogance) can be used to signal dominance. The evidence suggests that intellectual humility (or lack thereof) can have each of these effects. Seeing intellectual humility as (inter alia) a reputation management tool predicts that people will be more or less likely to display intellectual humility in some contexts. For instance, people in a position of power might stand to lose less if they fail to be intellectual humble; accordingly, evidence suggests that they tend to display less intellectual humility. In conclusion, we speculate that understanding intellectual humility as reputation management could help construct environments more conducive to displays of intellectual humility.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,486

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Is Intellectual Humility Compatible with Political Conviction?Michael Hannon & Ian James Kidd - 2024 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 27 (2).
Intellectual Humility.Ian M. Church & Justin Barrett - 2016 - In Everett L. Worthington Jr, Don E. Davis & Joshua N. Hook, Routledge Handbook of Humility. Springer.
Intellectual Humility, Testimony, and Epistemic Injustice.Ian M. Church - 2020 - In Mark Alfano, Michael Patrick Lynch & Alessandra Tanesini, The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Humility. New York, NY: Routledge.
Educating for Intellectual Humility and Conviction.Duncan Pritchard - 2020 - Journal of Philosophy of Education 54 (2):398-409.
False Intellectual Humility.Allan Hazlett - 2020 - In Mark Alfano, Michael Patrick Lynch & Alessandra Tanesini, The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Humility. New York, NY: Routledge.
Intellectual Humility and Humbling Environments.Steven Bland - forthcoming - Review of Philosophy and Psychology:1-22.

Analytics

Added to PP
2023-02-21

Downloads
71 (#310,618)

6 months
13 (#214,435)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?